The Sneeze

F

Falcon

DV8
Location
So. California
THE SNEEZE
> >
> > They walked in tandem, each of the ninety-two students filing into
> > the already crowded auditorium. With their rich maroon gowns flowing
> > and the traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they
> > felt.
> >
> > Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and Moms freely brushed away
> > tears.
> >
> > This class would NOT pray during the commencements, not by choice,
> > but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it..
> > The principal
> > and several students were careful to stay within the guidelines
> > allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and challenging
> > speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one asked for
> > blessings on the graduates or their families.
> >
> >
> > The speeches were nice, but they were routine until the final speech
> > received a standing ovation.
> >
> >
> > A solitary student walked proudly to the microphone.
> > He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then, it happened.
> >
> >
> > All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED !!!!
> >
> >
> > The student on stage simply looked at the audience and said, 'GOD
> > BLESS YOU'
> >
> > And he walked off the stage...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > The audience
> > exploded into applause. This graduating class had found a unique way
> > to invoke God's blessing on their future with or without the court's
> > approval.
> >
> >
> > Isn't this a wonderful story? Pass it on to all your
> > friends.........and
> >
> >
> > GOD BLESS YOU!!!!
> >
> >
> > This is a true story; it happened at Eastern Shore
> > District High School in Musquodoboit Harbour ,
> > Nova Scotia.
> >
 

Falcon said:
THE SNEEZE
> >
> > They walked in tandem, each of the ninety-two students filing into
> > the already crowded auditorium. With their rich maroon gowns flowing
> > and the traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they
> > felt.
> >
> > Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and Moms freely brushed away
> > tears.
> >
> > This class would NOT pray during the commencements, not by choice,
> > but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it..
> > The principal
> > and several students were careful to stay within the guidelines
> > allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and challenging
> > speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one asked for
> > blessings on the graduates or their families.
> >
> >
> > The speeches were nice, but they were routine until the final speech
> > received a standing ovation.
> >
> >
> > A solitary student walked proudly to the microphone.
> > He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then, it happened.
> >
> >
> > All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED !!!!
> >
> >
> > The student on stage simply looked at the audience and said, 'GOD
> > BLESS YOU'
> >
> > And he walked off the stage...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > The audience
> > exploded into applause. This graduating class had found a unique way
> > to invoke God's blessing on their future with or without the court's
> > approval.
> >
> >
> > Isn't this a wonderful story? Pass it on to all your
> > friends.........and
> >
> >
> > GOD BLESS YOU!!!!
> >
> >
> > This is a true story; it happened at Eastern Shore
> > District High School in Musquodoboit Harbour ,
> > Nova Scotia.
> >
Click to expand...

This is neat, thanks Falcon;)
 
Loved that! Partly because it was Nova Scotians doing it, partly because it just shows, no matter what, young-uns will find a way to get over on the Establishment! I happen to be an agnostic myself, but understand that many people find comfort in believing in God, as well as can be very destructive to non-believers in their particular god. I do believe in sending positive thoughts out on the ethers for those persons and other creatures and causes that I care about. To me saying "Bless you'' is just wishing others well.
 
But it didn't happen in Nova Scotia at all. Check out Snopes.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/sneeze.asp

The facts of the story are these: The incident the e-mail is based upon took place on 20 May 2001 during the commencement exercises at Washington Community High School in Washington, Illinois. With the help of the ACLU, the family of Natasha Appenheimer, that year's valedictorian, brought suit to prevent the inclusion of the invocation and benediction traditionally given at the school's commencement ceremony. The suit was decided in the favor of the Appenheimers when, three days before the ceremony, the court handed down a temporary injunction barring the inclusion of the prayers on the basis of their having been deemed "school sponsored" (and thereby an unconstitutional violation of the first amendment's "establishment clause"). Though the school had said it would contest the ruling that barred it from sponsoring prayer at its graduation ceremonies, it dropped such plans in July 2001 once it came to some appreciation of how much such a legal battle might cost.

People were angered by the decision, which overturned a tradition of 80 years' standing at Washington Community High. Many found unique ways of protesting the judge's ruling. Before the ceremony, students organized a prayer vigil around the school's flagpole. Some 50 seniors clasped hands in a circle while about 150 underclassmen and members of the community encircled them. Several students festooned their mortarboards with religious slogans: "I'm praying now," "Amen," "1 nation under God," "I will still pray 2 day," and "Let's Pray 01." One parent distributed 120 homemade wood-and-nail crosses among the students.

Yet it was the act of Ryan Brown, a member of the graduating class who was scheduled to give a speech during the event, that is now celebrated in the e-mail forward. As his form of protest, he had worked it out with a handful of friends that when he faked a sneeze at the podium, they were to cry out "God bless you." The plan was carried out as envisioned, with everyone who had been in on it playing their assigned parts. (Mr. Brown also made another protest on his way to the podium: he stopped to bow in silent prayer, an act that prompted the audience to stand and applaud. He replied to the crowd, "Don't applaud for me, applaud for God.")

A month after the commencement, the online account that is the meat of this article began to circulate. In that embellished version, the speaker's sneeze was cast as being accidental, and the response it provoked spontaneously and unthinkingly issued from each of the graduating students almost as if they had spoken with one voice. This marked a tremendous departure from the truth, as the actual sneeze had been faked and the benediction (which was pronounced by only those few of the graduating seniors who were in on the plan) had been scripted. There was no spontaneity to the act, no unwilled inescapable "at-choo!" that prompted the unpremeditated yet socially-obligated reply of "Bless you!" — that repositioning of the event was authorial embroidery.

That June 2001 fictionalization presented the sneeze and response as fortuitous accidents and asserted that the whole graduating class imparted the blessing, which represented two major strayings from the truth. However, even with those meanderings off the path of veracity, this earlier account stayed far closer to the facts than did a 2004 version which switched the roles the students had played to make for better storytelling. In that version, 92 students all sneezed at once, and the one lone speaker blessed them.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/sneeze.asp#TXOtBDm1ySeCFXas.99
Click to expand...
Another "only in America" moment. Leave Canada out of it.
 
If memory serves me right, the Pilgrims came over here because they wanted religious liberty. So I beleive each is entitled to worship whatever or whoever they want, if by doing so they are not forcing others to obide by their rules. If you don't pray than simply don't bow your head, or don't say Amen. But the pledge does say -One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all". If you don't beleive than my beleiving shouldn't bother you, nor does your unbeleif bother me.
 
But it does bother me when people twist or embellish facts to prove a point.

Last night on talk back radio I heard the first of the many complaints about Christmas being opposed by people of other faiths and of little children being denied the joys of Christmas decorations in the cities and carols in the shops.

It's all hogwash but it comes back up year after year like moles in that whacking game.

The first two callers were Jewish, telling the listeners that they have no problems with the celebration of Christmas.
I felt like ringing up myself to complain about the way an important Christian festival has been hihacked for commercial purposes, and anyway, the season before Dec 25 is properly referred to as Advent. Christmas is a very short season of just 12 days, beginning on Christmas Day.

Don't get me wrong. I like all the trappings of cultural Christmas - the decorations, parties, cards and gifts - but I don't like it when people of other faiths are demonised because some city shops decide to cut back on their displays to save costs or some mayor decides to make a statement about being inclusive. For me, the season of Advent is all about personal reflection on the gift of a saviour and about what that means in terms of my obligations to the poorest of the poor to whom Christmas is supposed to bring Good News.

Off topic, I know but I find fussing about Christmas decorations or the format of a school graduation to be pointless in the face of more important issues that Christ would remind us about if he were present with us today. And of course, for those who believe, he is.
 
I don't think it happened only once. It is not important where it happened, but that it happened. My guess is it was copied by other classes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top